Conventional liquid crystal devices are constructed by bonding a pair of transparent substrates to one another via a seal member, and sealing a liquid crystal between the substrates inside of the seal member, or within a liquid crystal seal area.
One example of the structure of the liquid crystal devices is shown in FIGS. 31(a) and 31(b). FIG. 31(a) is a planar perspective view illustrating the planar structure of the liquid crystal device 1, and FIG. 31(b) is an enlarged cross section illustrating the structure in the vicinity of a terrace area 11a in the liquid crystal device 1. The liquid crystal device 1 comprises two sheet of transparent substrates 11 and 12 bonded to one another via a seal member 13. The transparent substrate 11 is formed to be slightly wider than the transparent substrate 12, and a terrace area 11a that protrudes at the side of the end portion of the transparent substrate 12 is formed on the transparent substrate 11. The inside of the seal member 13 serves as a rectangular liquid crystal seal area A.
Transparent electrodes 111 are formed within the liquid crystal seal area A on the transparent substrate 11, and wiring lines 131a are pulled out on the surface of the terrace area 11a after passing under the seal member 13. An insulation film 112 is formed on the transparent electrodes 111 by being restricted only on the liquid crystal seal area A, and an orientation film 113 is additionally formed thereon. Transparent electrodes 121 are formed on the transparent substrate 12, and these transparent electrodes 121 extend toward the area where the seal member 13 is formed, after extending toward the direction perpendicular to the transparent electrodes 111. An orientation film 123 is formed on the transparent electrodes 121, and a liquid crystal (not shown) injected between the orientation films 113 and 123 are controlled to be in a prescribed orientation state depending on the surface state of the orientation films.
Wiring lines 131b are formed with a given pattern at the right and left sides of the wiring lines 131a on the terrace area 11a. The wiring lines 131b extend on the transparent substrate 11 toward the area where the seal member 13 is formed. The seal member 13 is made of a material containing conductive particles in a resin, which displays anisotropic conductivity that shows electrical conductivity only along the direction of thickness of the substrate (the direction along the gap between the substrates) by being compressed between the transparent substrates 11 and 12. The transparent electrodes 121 overlap over the wiring lines 131b at a vertical-conductive crossover of the seal member 13, and the transparent electrodes are conductively connected to the wiring lines via the vertical-conductive crossover.
The tips of the wiring lines 131a and 131b are conductively connected to output terminals (not shown) of a driver IC 133 for addressing the liquid crystal via the anisotropic conductive film (not shown). A terminal pattern 134 is also formed on the terrace area 11a. One end of the terminal pattern 134 is conductively connected to the input terminals of the driver IC 133 via the anisotropic conductive film, and the other end of the terminal pattern 134 is condutively connected to a wiring member 136 such as a flexible wiring substrate or a TAB substrate.
Since the wiring lines 131a and 131b formed on the terrace area 11a have a small wiring width and formed with a fine pitch, they are susceptible to dust and acid besides involving a possibility to cause electrolytic corrosion, the entire packaging face of the terrace area 11a is coated with a resin molding material 141 comprising a silicone resin after packaging the driver IC 133 and the wiring member 136.
Since the liquid crystal device 1 has been required to be thin in accordance with recent trends of thinning and compacting electronic equipment, the thickness of the transparent substrates 11 and 12 comprising a glass are being in a trend to be thinned to comply with the foregoing requirements. However, thinning the transparent substrates 11 and 12 results in decreased strength of the substrates to make them to be easily broken, while arising a possibility that cracks are generated on the substrate particularly at the terrace area 11a where only the transparent electrodes 121 is protruding. Since the protrusion length of the terrace area 11a is larger in the COG (Chip On Glass) type liquid crystal device constructed by packaging the diver IC 133 on the terrace area 11a as described above, the possibility of generating cracks at the terrace area 11a is further increased.
Such drawbacks as described above may be solved by preventing local accumulation of stress by supporting a wide area of the terrace area 11a with a supporting member, when the liquid crystal device is packaged within the electronic equipment. However, since the entire packaging face of the terrace area 11a has been covered with the resin molding material 141 in the conventional liquid crystal device, it is difficult to uniformly support a wide area of the terrace area 11a. While supporting the liquid crystal device at the back face of the terrace area 11a that is not covered with the resin molding material 141 may be devised, this countermeasure is contradictory to the trend of thinning and compacting as hitherto described, because the thickness of the supporting structure of the liquid crystal device is increased.
The object of the present invention for solving the foregoing problems is to provide a liquid crystal device comprising a structure by which the terrace area of the liquid crystal device can be uniformly supported.